But it was only at a breath from the other world, which had seemed to her to come from the Grotto.
"No, no, I am so comfortable! Only place the shawl over my knees.
And--thank you, Pierre--don't be anxious about me.

I no longer require anyone now that I am with her." Her voice died away, she was already falling into an ecstasy, her hands clasped, her eyes raised towards the white statue, in a beatific transfiguration of the whole of her poor suffering face.
Yet Pierre remained a few minutes longer beside her.

He would have liked to wrap her in the shawl, for he perceived the trembling of her little wasted hands.

But he feared to annoy her, so confined himself to tucking her in like a child; whilst she, slightly raised, with her elbows on the edges of her box, and her eyes fixed on the Grotto, no longer beheld him.
A bench stood near, and he had just seated himself upon it, intending to collect his thoughts, when his glance fell upon a woman kneeling in the gloom.

Dressed in black, she was so slim, so discreet, so unobtrusive, so wrapt in darkness, that at first he had not noticed her.